A year of The Shield: 365 days on the trail of The Hounds of Justice

Dec. 16, 2012: The Shield faces its first extreme challenge

Tormented by the same renegades who cost Ryback the WWE Championship at Survivor Series, WWE Tag Team Champions Team Hell No forged a powerful alliance with the freshman Superstar. In hopes of humbling the upstarts at WWE TLC 2012, Ryback, Kane & Daniel Bryan summoned The Shield to make its competitive debut in a formidable bout: a six-man Tables, Ladders & Chairs Match.

Instead of trying to equal the sheer power of Ryback & Team Hell No at the pay-per-view, The Hounds of Justice employed a divide-and-conquer strategy that worked to perfection. Ambrose & Rollins knocked Bryan out with a superplex off a table. Reigns plowed Kane through a ringside barricade. Then, they finished the job by crushing Ryback with a three-man powerbomb, thus sealing a victorious debut WWE match for The Shield.

The last word “We warned you. We warned everybody. We shined a big, bright, glaring light on the injustice in WWE.” — Dean Ambrose, expressing disbelief pertaining to doubts in the WWE Universe about The Shield’s fanatical devotion to justice (SmackDown, Dec. 28, 2012)